Dasht-e Lut

As seen from space

Map of biotopes of Iran      Forest steppe      Forests and woodlands      Semi-desert      Desert lowlands      Steppe      Salted alluvial marshes

Dasht-e Lut, also spelled Dasht-i-Lut, is a large salt desert in southeastern Iran.

Iran is climatically part of the Afro-Asian belt of deserts that stretch from the Cape Verde islands off West Africa all the way to Mongolia near Beijing, China. The patchy, elongated, light-colored feature in the foreground (parallel to the mountain range) is the northernmost of the Dasht dry lakes that stretch southward 300 kilometers (186 miles). In near-tropical deserts, elevated areas capture most precipitation. As a result, the Dasht-e Lut is generally considered to be an abiotic zone.

Iran's geography consists of a plateau surrounded by mountains and divided into drainage basins. Dasht-e Lut is one of the largest of these desert basins, 480 kilometers (300 miles) long and 320 kilometers (200 miles) wide,^[1] and also one of the driest and hottest. A NASA satellite recorded surface temperatures in the Lut desert of Iran as high as 71 °C (159 °F)^[2], the hottest temperature ever recorded on the surface of the Earth. It has an area of about 51,800 square kilometers (20,000 mi²).^[3] The other large basin is the Dasht-e Kavir. During the spring wet season, water briefly flows down from the Kerman mountains, but it soon dries up, leaving behind only rocks, sand, and salt.

The eastern part of Dasht-e Lut is a low plateau covered with salt flats. In contrast, the center has been sculpted by the wind into a series of parallel ridges and furrows, extending over 150 km (90 miles) and reaching 75 m (250 feet) in height.^[1] This area is also riddled with ravines and sinkholes. The southeast is a vast expanse of sand, like a Saharan erg, with dunes 300 m (1000 feet) high, among the tallest in the world.^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} (1980) Natural Wonders of the World. The Reader's Digest Association, Inc., 117. ISBN 978-0-89577-087-5. 
2. ^ Daniel Engber (2007-05-30). "The Ceaseless Buzzing of Kinetic Energy". Discover Magazine. Retrieved on 2007-10-03. 
3. ^ Wright, John W. (ed.) (2006). The New York Times Almanac, 2007, New York, New York: Penguin Books, 456. ISBN 978-0-14-303820-7. 

External links

• NASA image and info
• NASA survey on temperatures around the globe

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